UK Trip- Day 6: BookCrossing Convention Continues


April 14, 2012:

Had slightly more sleep at night, due to sleeping on the floor of the bathroom with pillows over my head. Then had a very nice breakfast with MORE BookCrossers this time.

I came up with a sentence for the game in the hall outside the main room. They selected three books and put the title, author, and back cover summary of the book and we all had to think up lines that would be clever first sentences for those books. Mine didn’t end up winning, but did get more than a handful of votes. So that made me happy.

I bought a TON of things at the supply store. I bought some bags, because I hadn’t brought enough with me on my travels. I bought a CD and a Harpycumber cross stitch kit for myself. I also bought a ton of little items for presents for some of the BCinDCers back home who didn’t get to go to the convention. I was nearly late for the author talks, but they set my items aside for me so I didn’t miss anything.

The first author, Peador O Guilin was funny and inspiring. He seems to write stories that are a mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. It was great hearing from an author who embraces his scifi & geek side and doesn’t believe in the strict genre boundaries that some people have today.

Adrienne Dines was up next. She is definitely a born storyteller. Apparently, she had spoken at another convention or unconvention, but she delivered a much different talk this time. She told about her times as a child and her characters in Catholic School.

Lunch was part of the convention, and the veggie dish was very yummy indeed. I got some more signatures as I sat with some BookCrossers I hadn’t met already. I remember discussing Forgotten Bookmarks among other topics.

We had our annual BookCrossing Kiva Team discussion after lunch. We came up with a new goal and some some guidelines/policies for suggesting new loans to each other. I’ve only made about 10 loans on Kiva, but the site is addictive and the BookCrossing group on it is a great one.

Then it was time to head back in for more presentations. Bruce had very little to say compared to last year and significantly fewer questions were asked of him (I suspect we have all completely given up on Meetup Manager). The Goethenberg team officially welcomed us to their convention, supplying us with tons of chocolate/candy as a bribe LOL. The bowl kept coming back to my row, which was right in the middle, as it was passed up and back and up again repeatedly. Melbourne did their pitch for 2014 and we all voted to accept them as the next convention location. I’m very tempted to go; I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea (where I was born, but I don’t remember it at all).

I helped put together a puzzle with some other BookCrossers. I remember the puzzles being a hit at last year’s convention, and this year followed suit. I actually worked on two different puzzles today. So much fun. Man, I miss doing puzzles regularly.

After that was breakout time. I didn’t bring a wrapped book for the swap game, but it’s just as well because I do love a good craft. I’d intended to do the Harpycumber cross-stitch (I’d bought the kit that morning). But I suddenly found myself felting! I’d gotten a little Padfoot felted animal in a swap-bot swap a few months ago and had never seen anything like it & had been wondering how such a thing was created. Pretty soon, I was learning how to do it. It’s a very imprecise art form, which is not my style at all. But it also involves stabbing things repeatedly, which is actually quite fun. LOL I made a little sheep bookmark. Imprecise though it may be, it was also easier than a lot of crafts. And it was a whole lot of fun!

I went back to El Toro Bravo for dinner and it was a disaster this time around. The group menu (which hadn’t been either supplied to or presented by the Dublin group) didn’t work for vegetarians. After some negotiating, vegetarians were allowed to order off the menu. But they messed our orders up and then ran out of food without telling us, so some people in our group never even got what they ordered. It was an awful dinner, but good company at least.

I met my NSS person, who loved the books I gave her (I think we were both tearing up). And we had a great conversation. If only I’d known she was an Eeyore fan as well! I definitely have some things I need to mail her now ;-)

I was so tired that my eyes were literally burning. So I turned in early. As the night before had been so rough for me, Ixy let me crash in her extra bed for a night. I got a really great sleep and woke up at 9am the next morning feeling so much better. Walking through the hallway in pajamas, hugging my pillow, made me feel a little silly, but I felt so rested after feeling so miserable that I didn’t even care when I got strange looks from fellow hotel guests. LOL